


my echo, my shadow (and me)

by whataboutateakettle



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Developing Friendships, F/M, Gen, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-14 21:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11791827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whataboutateakettle/pseuds/whataboutateakettle
Summary: bailing on them seems to be peter's new favorite hobby// five times peter doesn't show and one time he actually does.





	my echo, my shadow (and me)

**1/**

She first spots him in the line for tickets, but he’s staring at his phone screen like he’s trying to Matilda the thing into the air. Also, there’s like five people between them and she’s not about to lose her place in the queue just to say hi to him.

She wonders whether he’s waiting for Peter. Because going to the movies alone doesn’t seem like a Ned Leeds thing to do.

He probably bailed. Bailing seems to be Peter’s new favorite hobby. She’s not sure what this Stark Internship is all about, especially since she looked into it and Tony Stark has exactly zero history of offering internships to anyone ever, but especially not to punctually challenged sophomores.

She glances up at the movie board and notes the two films that are starting in the next ten minutes. And she’s gonna bet that Ned isn’t lining up to see the period drama she had been planning on watching. So when so when she gets up to the counter she buys one ticket for the action movie with the aliens. The guy behind the counter, about her age judging by the pimples on his face, tells her it’s a great movie, but she has her doubts.

She’s pretty sure that Ned hasn’t even seen her yet because he’s still looking at his phone like it's personally offended him.  So she takes her ticket and her small popcorn and heads over to stand by the entrance to the theater.  A few minutes later Ned is finally walking towards her, holding a coke the size of a small child. He’s only few feet away when he finally looks up and really, she hadn’t expected his face to contort _so much_ but it’s truly a gift. She wishes she had her sketchbook with her.

“Hey,” She lifts her chin a little. “You here alone?”

“N-no! No, I’m-” he starts, flusters, looked behind him like he’s hoping to see Peter coming just in time to save the day.

“That’s pretty lame,” she says. He frowns, probably about to say that she is also here alone, which is very much not the point. So she preempts him by waving her hand towards the door. “You going in or what?”

Ned looks surprised, although she's not sure whether it’s because she’s seeing this particular film or whether she’s indicating that she’s planning to watch said film with him. Either way it takes him a moment to nod slowly, and then wordlessly follow her inside.

The lights were already dimmed, but they hadn’t missed anything except a trailer or two. The screen’s bright enough that she can see the place is barely half full and she heads into the middle of an empty row and sits down. Ned follows her and sits down too, leaving an empty seat between them.

“Hey loser,” she whispers. He looks over and she reaches out her popcorn, “You want some?”

 

* * *

**2/**

He’s tried calling Peter like five times now and he might actually be getting worried. First, he just disappears off the roof, without coming back. He’s not sure whether he’s caught up in spider-man business or whether he’s in trouble or whether he just chickened out of their plan. These days, all these options seem to have the same chances.

He’s stood near the window, trying to pretend like he’s still enjoying the party and not in a growing state of panic. To be fair, he hasn’t been at the window all night, he’s gulped down more glasses of coke than he probably should have and taken a few trips to the bathroom because of it. Liz’s house is like seriously fancy. He’s not sure what her parents do but they’ve gotta be really rich to live like this. Everything is like at least 50% shinier than it needs to be.

“Where’s Peter?” a voice behind him asks. He spins on his heels and find Michelle standing there, arms crossed.

“Umm.”

He’s surprised she’s still here. He hasn’t seen her since he and Peter got to the party and to be honest, he’s still confused by that’s interaction and not sure he’s ready for another.

Michelle raises an eyebrow when he doesn’t elaborate, “Did he bail again?”

“I think something came up. With his aunt. Yeah,” he says definitively. This is his part of the job, and he’s determined to do it well. Even if he lives in pretty much constant fear of accidentally blurting out the truth.

She stares at him for a moment and he genuinely believes she can see right through him and wonders if maybe Michelle has her own superpowers that they don’t know about.

“Do you need a ride home?” She asks then, the offer so unexpected he actually laughs at her first.

“Wait, what?”

“Didn’t Peter’s aunt drive you here? How were you gonna get home?”

That is, actually, a great question. He supposes he could call his mom, but she’s gonna be super annoyed about driving all the way out to the suburbs at this time of night.

“My dad’s picking me up in a bit, he can take you,” Michelle continues.

“Are you sure?” He's definitely not sure. Michelle doesn't really do favors. Or kindness. Or friends.

She narrows her eyes, “I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t sure. Just don’t be too lame on the ride home, I don’t need my parents knowing I hang out with dorks.”

From the other room, they hear Flash yelling something about Peter into a microphone. Ned swallows, and gestures towards the bathrooms again. Except this time he pauses in the hallway, presses the speed-dial on his phone. Again.

Except this time, finally he answers. 

 

* * *

**3/**

The loud and constant hum of chatter in the lobby doesn’t help with the fact that almost everyone on her team is panicking. She’s pretty sure Liz is about to have an aneurysm, as she tries calling him again. Mr. Harrington is visibly sweating. Even Flash seems mildly concerned about the fact that they’ve somehow lost a teammate. Of course, he’s expressing this concern by reminding them all that Parker is unreliable (which is kind of true), and not that smart (which is not), and should be kicked off the team (which is debatable right now). If he’s not dead, that is.  

Ned, however, is not saying anything. In fact, he’s being suspiciously silent about the whole thing. She’s been watching him all morning, and he hasn’t said three words to anyone. He's usually the one delivering Peter's bad excuses for him, but she guesses they couldn't come up with anything to explain why he just disappeared from their hotel room over night. She sighs, takes a final gulp of the not-great tea she bought at the stand out front, chucks it in the nearby bin and cross the floor towards him. 

“So, where is he?” She asks, straightening her spine so that she towers over him even more so than usual.

“I don’t know,” Ned replies.

She rolls her eyes. “Cut the crap, Ned. Where’s Parker?”

Before Ned can say anything, the decathlon organizer walks up to them, tells Mr. Harrington that they need to head backstage now. Everyone glances at each other, resigned that they'll be completing one member down. Ned lifts his head, looks her directly in the eye with an expression she’s not sure she’s seem him wear before. It makes everything, her school blazer, the braid in her hair, the ribs in her chest, feel tight.

“ _I. Don’t. Know_ ,” he repeats. And she believes him. But she knows that he does know something, something she hadn't figured out yet.

 

* * *

**4/**

Peter doesn’t show up to school that morning. He knows why. Well, he knows enough to give their work-shopped alibi to their teachers. So while Peter's off doing something crazy cool and dangerous he’s stuck in History trying to remember dates for next week’s quiz. 

There’s barely fifteen minutes to go in class when someone’s phone goes off. And then another one. And then-

“Holy Crap, Spider-Man is fighting a ferry!”

Suddenly everyone in class has something to say, and while the teacher is trying and failing to get them to focus, Ned’s trying to swallow down the lump in his throat as he pulls his own phone out of his pocket. He finds whatever live reports he can and the lump in his throat triples in size when he sees blurry photos of a ferry, torn in half, being held together by Spider-Man. No, _by Peter_. That’s his best friend, holding together a ship. And nothing about it seems cool right now. 

He doesn’t even realise he’s holding his breath until there’s reports that Iron Man’s been sighted, that he glued the boat back together. Spider-Man disappears from the scene.

 _dude, you okay????_ He texts Peter and immediately kicks himself. What a stupid question. He follows it up with _saw the ferry on the news. call me asap!!!_

“Of course he needs Tony Stark to bail him out,” Flash scoffs loudly, “Spider-Man’s not even a real superhero.” There’s a murmur through the class and then-

“Didn’t he save your life in D.C.?” Michelle points out, lifting her nose out of her textbook. She’s the only one in the class that doesn’t have her phone in front of her. She glances over like she could feel him looking and once again it feels like she’s seeing straight through him.  

Eventually, the news choppers run out of breaking news, and their teacher gives up on getting anything done.  A weird tension falls over the class, everyone still on their phones, wondering whether the ferry incident was a precursor to some bigger disaster. No one but him knows why Spider-Man was there and even he has no idea how the plan Peter had ended in a ferry split in two.

When the bell rings, he’s shoving his stuff into his bag, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible, although he’s not sure what for. It's not until he starts walking out that he realizes Michelle had been waiting for him.

“Here,” she hands him some papers.

“What’s this?”

“Notes. You can give them to Peter, since he skipped class. Again. He might need them for the quiz.”

“That’s... _nice_ of you. He looks at her suspiciously. “Oh crap! Are you actually being nice?!”

She narrows her eyes at him, but he’s determined not to be daunted by her today. She doesn’t say anything though, and he kind of feels like he’s won this one. For once.

“It’s okay, you can tell me. I’m really great at keeping secrets,” he adds, grins widely.

Michelle looks at him carefully as her straight mouth grows into a smirk. He’s not sure he’s ever really seen Michelle smile before. It’s kind of weird. And suddenly he feels less confident.

“Ned,” she says, leaning down a little which feels both condescending and conspiratorial, “You’re really not good at secrets.”

_What._

She takes a step back, shrugs her shoulders _almost_ apologetically before turning around fully and leaving the room.

 

* * *

**5/**

The music is fine, she guesses, and the punch is sweet and tangy.  She’s really only here because she promised her mom that she would try, at least, to act like a normal teenager. But Ned’s already there, hanging out with Abe, and he waves her over, and then Sally arrives with Charles, and she’s not having the _worst_ time of her life, so that’s something.

She’d still rather being reading a book in the corner, but none would fit into her clutch.

Peter’s not there yet, but everyone in school has heard that Peter and Liz are supposed to be coming together. She’s not sure how he pulled that off, but even he wouldn’t risk screwing that up by not showing.

Still, she’s almost contemplating making a small bet with herself whether he bails on this too.

And then Liz, all legs in a cute red dress, walks in and Michelle feels her heart drop a little. And it’s not that she feels self-conscious in her outlet store dress that’s a little too big in the chest. It’s because Liz is walking in alone. Michelle stares, hoping to figure out whatever crappy excuse Peter has made up this time just by looking at her, and maybe she’s too obvious because Liz heads over to them.

“Peter’s just outside talking to my dad, he’ll be here soon,” she explains, before continuing on to Betty, who’s been waving at her frantically since she walked in.

Okay, so maybe he’s not a lost cause just yet.

But then she spots Peter peering through the glass doors and he looks weirdly worried, probably about embarrassing himself on the dance floor in front of Liz. She flips him the bird and laughs doing it, but as soon as he actually walks into the auditorium, she can tell something’s wrong. He’s got this look on his face, like he’s swallowed something bitter and it's stuck in his throat.

Peter ignores all of them, walks straight past and towards Liz. She frowns, takes a step back from their circle so she can watch him through the crowd.

“Oh crap” Ned says loudly, watching him as closely as she is. Someone else asks what’s wrong with Peter, but none of them have an answer. They all just watch as Peter runs out the other side of the auditorium.

So maybe she was half right.

“I should go see if he’s okay,” Ned says and follows after him. She wonders if she should follow them too. Maybe it would finally put an end to them trying to keep their big secret from her. Maybe she could finally put her suspicions to rest.

But something about the look on Peter’s face stopped her. Something serious was going on. He looked scared. And that kind of scared her too.

 

* * *

**+1**

_11:30pm_

“If he doesn’t show, you’re buying the popcorn,” MJ mutters, arms crossed next to him. He wonders briefly how much time they’ve spent together just waiting for Peter.

Still, he shakes his head. “He’ll show, okay. There’s no way Peter’s gonna miss this movie. He’s the one that wanted to go to the midnight screening.”

That’s only, like, half a lie. He also really wanted to go to the midnight screening, because if he reads any spoilers about this one he might die. But she doesn’t need to know that.

MJ makes a sound like she doesn’t believe him, just pulls out her phone and looks at the screen carefully a few moments before she shoves it back in her pocket. She’s still kind of weird, even though they’re definitely kind of friends now. Which is fine by him because she’s really smart and pretty funny and sometimes has this weird power to make Peter blush so hard he could probably match his spidey mask.

They move up a little in the ticket line and she sighs again. “You realise we’ll all be dead in school tomorrow, right?”

“Like you don’t stay up this late anyway,” he looks up at her. Because really, she’s the one sending links to weird long articles in their group chat at three in the morning.

She narrows her eyes at him for a second, like she’s thinking of something devastating to say, but then she just laughs softly and rests her elbow on the top of his shoulder.

 

_11:55pm_

“Fine,” Ned sighs, “I’ll go get the popcorn.”

She shrugs, pretends she's not disappointed. “Not even gonna say I told you so”

“I’m sure he just got caught up with his aunt or something,” he mutters halfheartedly, handing her the tickets he’d been holding, and heading over towards the snacks counter.

It’s not like she expects Ned to break and tell her Peter’s secret, but she was kind of hoping that by now he’s have figured out that she’s, well, figured it out.  But either he’s oblivious or in denial, because he keeps giving her the same dumb excuses he gives everyone when Peter goes missing.  

She pulls out her phone again. She started tracking Spider-man sightings after D.C., after she came face to face with a superhero and something about him seemed _familiar_. She only really worked it out after homecoming, when news came out about Liz’s dad and what Spider-Man had done, and somehow everything clicked into place, all the times Peter had disappeared, all the conversations she’d half-overheard and couldn’t make sense of.

She refreshes the app, and sees that Peter, _Spider-Man_ , had been spotted swinging around a lamp post twenty minutes ago. And it was only a few blocks from here.

She wonders whether she should just tell them she knows. She can imagine Peter as he flusters over his words and Ned gaping at her in astonishment. But sometimes she thinks that once Peter knows that she knows, things could change.

Looking up, she sees Ned walking back to her with a giant bucket of popcorn in his hands. He gives her a thumbs up and nearly drops the whole thing, catching it awkwardly before it topples.

She kind of likes how things are.

 

_11:59pm_

He’s late. Okay, not late _yet_ , but he’s gonna be late if he doesn’t hurry up. Plus he kinda promised them he would get there early enough to buy the popcorn.

He sprints into the lobby of the theater, finds them standing by the doorway. Ned’s already holding a big bucket of popcorn, and he feels a wave of relief wash over him that he hasn’t cost them the sweet-salty enjoyment.   

“Hi, hi, sorry I’m here, I’m here,” he says, breathing heavily as he slows down in front of them. He doesn’t offer any more, even though he’d like to explain how he’d just webbed two dudes that trying to mug a old man to the wall just two blocks from here.

“MJ bought your ticket,” Ned says, eyes wide. Peter will probably end up telling him the story later. Because even after everything that's happened, this stuff is still pretty cool.

“You owe me 15 bucks,” she nods, grabs his sleeve and drags him towards the entrance of the cinema. Peter’s just thankful she’s in too much of a rush to ask questions.

He settles into his seat, between Ned and MJ. She’s MJ now. And they’re friends now. And she still confuses the hell out of him, but also she’s a genius and the world’s fastest reader and hilarious when he’s not the butt of her jokes. And she’s mostly stopped hassling him for being late all the time, although she’s still on his back about decathlon, way more than Liz ever was. He kind of likes it though, her being around.  Except that sometimes around her, his senses work over time. They’ll be sitting in class and he’ll suddenly become very aware of how she plays with the pen between her fingers and how her shampoo smells.  

The movie is good, like worth every penny and the rush to get here and the tiredness they’ll feel tomorrow. But every so often MJ shifts in her seat, and all his focus moves to the way she exhales gently after a tense scene, or the way she stretches to reach into the popcorn bucket that’s been placed on his lap. He’s so focused on it that he misses a moment, and a dog barking on screen suddenly makes him jump a little. His knee shifts right, bumps into hers, and he freezes. He expects her to jerk it away or even tease him about it, but she doesn’t. She leaves it there, and he does too, until the lights come back on.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I've kind of loved the idea or Michelle and Ned interacting while Peter was away doing important spidey work since I saw Ned's texts about bumping into Michelle at the movies.  
> 2\. I tried to keep this in canon with the film as much as possible.  
> 3\. In my head Michelle has her suspicious, but she's not absolutely sure until after homecoming..  
> 4\. I don't actually think it will be revealed that Michelle knows until around or even after Infinity Wars so I didn't want to cross that bridge just yet.  
> 5\. The title comes from an old song called We Three, My Echo, My Shadow, and Me. I like to think that Ned is the echo (because he's parroting excuses and alibis to everyone, and also holds Peter's secret) and Michelle's the shadow because she silently follows his movements.


End file.
